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Trudeau defends China extradition treaty talks

Canada won't deport anyone who might be killed, PM says.

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says an extradition treaty with China would uphold Canada's 'extraordinarily high standards.' The Conservatives say China's human rights record makes the country a poor candidate for such a treaty.

OTTAWA—Prime Minister Justin Trudeau moved Wednesday to deflect opposition and human rights concerns over his decision to open extradition treaty talks with China by saying he would not deport someone to face the death penalty.

“This is something very important to me personally,” said Trudeau.

In a news conference marking his return to parliamentary business two days after Parliament resumed, Trudeau defended his decision, just hours before he was to greet Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in Ottawa.

Without mentioning China’s surprise release last week of jailed Canadian citizen Kevin Garratt, Trudeau extolled the value of “having a strong, robust relationship” with China to promote Canadian economic, security and human rights principles, and its concerns on consular cases.

Several believe Garratt’s release was directly tied to Canada’s decision to accede to China’s long-standing request for Canada to discuss formal transfer of wanted suspects.

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It became clear Wednesday Canada is looking at more steps to revive the relationship through the newly launched “high-level dialogue on national security and the rule of law” that Trudeau sealed in China, including increased military-to-military co-operation.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau answers a question during Question Period in the House of Commons in Ottawa on Wednesday, Sept. 21, (ADRIAN WYLD / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

The terms of reference for the “dialogue” make specific reference to it, and Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan said he spoke to Chinese officials on his recent trip to Africa about possibilities.

“I was very direct about the challenges we face there” and what Canada is doing, said Sajjan. He said the Chinese were “very interested” in working “in peace operations with us because China does play a significant role in Africa, they have contributed peacekeeping troops as well.”

Sajjan said it is something Canada can “potentially assist the Chinese with, in terms of how we have evolved our peacekeeping.” He touted it as a “great way for us to collaborate (and) making sure that conversations on human rights, all those things, are woven in.”

Yet in his news conference, Trudeau skated around several other questions: the Northern Gateway pipeline; climate change talks with the provinces; his government’s inaction on funding for the aboriginal child welfare system; health-care funding plans for the provinces, and on whether his government would allow Parliament a vote on any decision to deploy Canadian forces on a peace operation mission — or “missions” as Trudeau put it — expected to be in Africa.

He said the government had not yet decided where the military peacekeepers would deploy, and repeated his past opposition to a pipeline going through the Great Bear rain forest in B.C.

Only on China did Trudeau forcefully stake out a position.

Despite an extradition treaty with the U.S., Trudeau said Canada does not extradite wanted offenders if there is a threat of capital punishment. He took credit for reversing the Conservative government’s policy that left to a justice minister’s discretion whether to seek the return of a Canadian citizen who might face execution abroad. Trudeau said he has returned to a more principled stand: “The Canadian government used to be obligated to protect the rights of any Canadian and we went back to that.”

But it was not enough for the official Opposition who for the second day led off with questions to the government on the China extradition talks.

Conservative interim leader Rona Ambrose said Trudeau is being “shockingly naive” about China. She said China has launched “thousands of cyber attacks” on Canada, and “sent foreign agents” into Canada to confront and demand the return of Chinese citizens suspected of corruption or economic crimes.

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